


I Will Be Brave Enough

by Mithrigil



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Childhood, Families of Choice, Gen, Poor Life Choices, impending doom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 06:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6600487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chewie watches Ben grow up, like a tree stretched taut between its roots and its branches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Be Brave Enough

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely inspired by Tyson Murphy's [Ben](http://geektyrant.com/news/ben-solo-and-chewbaccas-complicated-relationship-highlighted-in-comic-strip) comic. A picture's worth a thousand words, but apparently I wrote two. Whoops.
> 
> Title from _When I Grow Up_ , from the musical _Matilda_.

Two months after Endor, Han receives an urgent holo from Leia. Two hours after that, Chewbacca excuses himself from the bridge to let them finish their ensuing fight in relative privacy, and two hours after that the Millennium Falcon is on a course for Corellia, which is mostly Chewbacca’s doing, as Han and Leia are still--well, not fighting exactly, but not not-fighting either.

Two weeks after that, Chewbacca stands witness to their marriage, alongside Luke, Wedge, Lando, the droids, and Admiral Ackbar. It’s more like a slave wedding on Wasskah in scale, but as bright and grand as the ceremonies Chewbacca remembers from home, even if it’s in a city, not under the highest trees. Han looks dashing in his uniform, and Leia in hers, and after all the names are registered and notarized the seven of them drink and celebrate long into the night. Luke cries, but Chewbacca blocks him from Han and Leia’s view so he can wipe the tears on his sleeve.

For nearly a month, Chewbacca is apart from Han for the first time since they came together. Even after Han and Leia return, Han can’t take any jobs off-world, so Chewbacca runs them alone, or takes Luke along to follow leads on the Jedi and the Force. It’s not the same, and Chewbacca throws Han out of the hold more than once when he tries to dodge his new responsibilities, but Han keeps insisting that they’ll be out in the black again in no time.

Nine months after Endor, Leia’s cub is born, and time bends around him like a singularity.

**

Ben is so small that Chewbacca can fold him in one palm. He’s pink and raw all over, with a constellation of sunspots on his face and a smear of hair like soot, cradling his head like a helmet. He cries when Leia holds him, he cries when Han holds him, he _wails like a klaxon_ whenever Luke holds him (and _no, Luke, you can’t just depower him like a droid,_ Leia says). But whenever it’s his turn to mind the cub, Chewbacca just howls right back, like he did for his own cubs when they were small. He sings Ben every story of Kashyyyk he remembers, and when he runs out of those he tells his own.

Eventually, Ben learns to sleep through the night, as long as Chewbacca is in the room with him.

* *

Though his first words are in Basic, and he knows his mother and father on sight, Ben’s first sentence is in Shyriiwook:

_Sing story_ , he says in rumbles and mews. _Sing story, Chewie!_

*     *

Ben takes his very first steps up the loading dock of the Millennium Falcon. He can’t string the words together in Basic yet, just a stream of _no_ and _daddy_ and _not fair_ , but his meaning is clear to Chewbacca: _Don’t leave me!_

Departure is delayed for a couple of hours while Chewbacca assures Leia that yes, this is a clean run, and yes, he’ll take care of Ben even if Han hasn’t quite figured out how to childproof the gunnery, and of course they’ll hail her immediately if there’s even a rumor of Imperial remnants. But in the end, Ben gets strapped into a child-pod in one of the passenger seats, and takes off with them to the stars.

He loves the stars. As soon as it’s safe, Chewbacca lets Ben ride on his shoulders and push his little hairless paw against the viewscreens, trying to catch the streaks of hyperspace like fish in a black river. 

By the end of the run, Ben prefers walking to crawling. He can just barely reach Chewbacca’s hand, if he stretches as high as he can go.

*      *

Three years after Endor, Ben destroys his bunk. A tantrum is a tantrum, and Ben’s had his share, but no two-year-old should be able to dent durasteel with only his voice and his fists. Not even a Wookie two-year-old: even Chewbacca’s strongest daughter only pulverized dry wood at that age.

Han, characteristically, panics. So does Ben, and he cries for hours about not meaning to, it was a bad dream, he didn’t want to hurt the ship, he doesn’t want to be sent away or left alone or put out into space, he’s sorry, he’s sorry, he’s sorry.

Chewbacca carries him even as they land planetside, sharing the co-pilot’s seat as Ben holds on tight to his bandolier and snuggles into his fur.

Leia’s waiting, and Ben toddles out into her arms. He’s run out of tears, but Leia’s eyes go wide and horrified as soon as they touch.

Chewbacca has no innate connection to the Force, but in all his years he’s learned to see its workings.

*      *

Chewbacca is not privy to all of Han and Leia’s discussions about Ben. They both confide in Chewbacca, of course, but separately, and only come together in occluded fronts. In the end, he’s their son, not Chewbacca’s, so it’s only right. And considering how Chewbacca failed his own family, it’s not just right, it’s fair.

But the longer this storm builds, the more Ben can sense it too.

He tugs on Chewbacca’s whiskers and says, clearly, in Basic, “Uncle Chewie, I’m bad.”

Chewbacca rumbles disagreement, but it’s hard to explain in a language the boy only half-knows. _You’re not bad. Every child makes every parent have to choose. Every parent is always afraid._

“They’re scared because of me,” Ben whimpers. “Daddy’s scared. Daddy says he’s never scared. He’s lying. I made him lie.”

 _He was scared before you,_ Chewbacca says, _he’s scared all the time_ , but that’s even harder to get across.

In the end, Ben runs out of words first, and cries himself to sleep in Chewbacca’s lap.

*      *

As far as Chewbacca knows, Ben will be safe. Safer with Luke, planetside, than out in the black with him and Han. Ben has a gift. Ben has more family than just his Uncle Chewie, and a gift that only Luke, out of everyone in the galaxy, can hope to understand. It’s best for him to stay. To stay, and to learn, from someone more like him.

It still stings just as deep as leaving his own cubs, a century ago.

*      *

Seven years after Endor, and seven months after the liberation of Kashyyyk, Ben is not so little anymore. His skin is less pink and his spots less stark, thanks to hours training and meditating in the sun. His hair is properly shaggy at last. He says it makes him look just like Uncle Chewie, and everyone laughs.

Ben cringes when everyone laughs.

There are state dinners and commemoration ceremonies, and medals awarded to Chewbacca and Han, and official pronouncements about Luke’s new Jedi school. Ben stands next to Chewbacca for hours. He promises not to run away no matter how bored he gets. He can be good. He can be calm. He’s been practicing. Chewbacca believes him, but Ben keeps shifting from foot to foot and scratching at the collar of his tunic.

Chewbacca offers him a paw. Ben has an easier time reaching it than he used to.

*     *

“Everyone thinks about me all the time,” Ben says.

 _It’s because they care about you,_ Chewbacca tells him.

Ben shakes his head. “It’s because I’m wrong all the time. But I can be better.”

*   *

Their orbits overlap in a spirograph, but never coincide for long: a week here, a month there, for years at a time. Even if he claims he’s tired of studying with Luke, Ben never stops asking Chewbacca to teach him the things Luke won’t. Programming. Welding. Driving. There’s a machine shop at the New Temple, of course, but “You know Uncle Luke,” Ben says, ten years old now and built like a battledroid, all limbs and no padding and a sharp sullen chin. “If you don’t _just get it_ , he just says _then someday you will_.”

Chewbacca knows this very well, and can’t help purring in agreement. _It’s always been easy for him._

“Well it’s _not,_ ” Ben pouts, and kicks the leg of the worktable. “Or I’m just not as good as him.”

_You’re still learning._

“Don’t start sounding like him!” Ben stamps his feet, throws his tools to the ground and storms off. “Not you too!”

Chewbacca catches up to him a few minutes later. Ben has, literally, found his way into the building’s trash-processor, and is crumpled among the scraps and parts. The walls rattle every time Ben brings his fists down, durasteel and duraglass not so durable anymore in the onslaught. Chewbacca can’t help snuffling--this is about the only place in their home where Han, Luke, and Leia won’t ever willingly go, and Ben must know it.

But Chewbacca walks right in, never mind the smell, and folds himself over Ben’s back until the pounding stops and the crying begins.

“I can’t not feel things,” Ben whimpers. “I can’t.”

Chewbacca has no idea what to say to that, just holds Ben tight.

*    *

When he could fit into Chewbacca’s palm, Ben’s favorite story of Kashyyyk was of Lohkku the Tall.

Lohkku, it is sung, lived before offworlders came, when the trees grew so tall that you could not see their green tops for the clouds beneath. Lohkku lived in a time where Kashyyyk was the only world, and Wookies the only people. Lohkku watched the sky, in sun and storm, in day and night, and saw the river of the galaxy behind the veil of clouds. Lohkku said that she would grow to reach the bounty of the stars, even if it took the lifetime of the trees themselves. Many things she tried: hunting the eggs of the rare terentatek and the milk of kaniquerls; climbing the mountains that boasted no paths; stretching her forelegs and hind legs skyward until, said her friends, she looked very like a tree herself. And that, Lohkku saw, was the feat that would do it: to reach the stars, one had to grow upward, like the trees.

Many years it took, but soon a year passed without Lohkku’s forelegs touching the ground. She walked then as Wookies walk now, on two legs, with their legs as roots in the earth and their arms as boughs in the air. Lohkku grew tall indeed, and lived a thousand years, to teach her children to reach above the clouds.

Chewbacca has no one to tell this story now. Perhaps Han and Leia will have more children, but it seems unlikely. Perhaps Luke will permit Chewbacca to come to the Jedi school and teach the cubs there, but they have so much else to learn. Perhaps--no, Ben will not have children, if he is to become a Jedi. An apprentice, perhaps, or a shadow, but not a child. But perhaps one day, after his life-debt to Han is paid, the memories of Kashyyyk will not be so painful, and Chewbacca will return home. And perhaps when Han has grown too old to fly, Ben will take the helm instead, and Chewbacca will be there with him to understand, and reach.

*    *

Fifteen years after Endor, Ben can look Chewbacca in the eye without tilting his chin. He has outstripped his father for height, but he’s skinny and concave, like he’s living for two instead of one. Han jokes with Luke about not having the resources at the Temple to feed a growing boy, and Luke finds it funny, but Ben does not.

Ben still speaks Shyriiwook, even when he doesn’t mean to. He snarls, and growls, and his parents only partly understand.

Dinner that night erupts into the sort of fight where trenchers fly and, even if they don’t shatter, words and feelings do. And Ben runs off into the night to steal a shuttle, because of course Chewbacca taught him how to steal a shuttle. And Chewbacca, with his long stride, still only catches up when Ben’s already got the hatch down and the droid in place.

“Leave me alone!” Ben yells, in Basic, but the way he screams in Shyriiwook he’s begging for the exact opposite.

Chewbacca grabs him by the upper arm, but doesn’t pull him back. Ben isn’t crying, and isn’t fighting, and needs to know that Chewbacca isn’t here to hold him back for long.

 _Tell me what’s truly wrong,_ Chewbacca says, _and I will let you win._

Ben slumps in Chewbacca’s grip, and punches the hull once, but sighs and lets his arms fall to his sides. “They don’t know how wrong they are,” he says. “About the school, about me, about everything.”

_And you do?_

“I--” Ben cuts himself off, and snarls, and curses in Shyriiwook. _How can they be so fucking blind?_

Chewbacca taught him how to swear as well. Han was amused, at the time, and frankly so was Leia, but Luke was not. _What can you see that they can’t?_ Chewbacca asks, earnestly.

Ben hangs his head, his hair in his eyes, a nearly-black shadow that masks the constellation of his face. “The Jedi really are finished,” he says. “Grandfather was right. It can’t be that way anymore. We know too much. We _feel_ too much. And Luke won’t listen!”

 _I don’t know about your Grandfather,_ Chewbacca admits. _And I’m not a Jedi. But I know what it’s like to feel like the world is deciding for you, not with you._

Ben knows, of course. Ben knows about Chewbacca’s family, and his time in slavery, and the nature of his debt to Han. Chewbacca has sung Ben those stories for years, since before he knew how to listen, let alone speak.

“How do you stand it?” Ben grits his teeth. “How do you let them--”

 _I don’t,_ Chewbacca says, as clearly as he can. _Once, I had no choice. But now I do, just like you. I choose._

Ben doesn’t cry, but a sob wracks through his throat. His voice is rough, breaking, not as changed as his body yet. “But it’s not good. It’s not righteous. They want it for me so much, but I--it _hurts_ ,” he says, “it’s ripping my head apart. They want me to be good, and they say I’m not good enough. They want me to be brave, and they’re terrified of me. They want to pick up the shards of their old world and put them back together and I _can’t_ , I’ve never even seen it! And they want me turn myself off inside and just be this, this conduit for the Force, but even when they tell me that it’s not what they really want. I know! I know what they hide, and what they lie about, I can hear it all! And every time I hear it, I know how wrong they are. About this. About me. About the Force. About the whole world.”

Chewbacca lets Ben’s arm go, but doesn’t retreat.

“There’s a voice in my head,” Ben says, tilting his face to the sky. “It’s like a vision. Like a ghost. And it’s telling me I don’t have to be what they say I am. That they can’t bring the Old Republic back. That I can make something new. My own path. My own choice.”

This time when Chewbacca wraps his arms around Ben, they hold each other as equals.

 _You can,_ Chewbacca agrees. _You can always choose._

*   *

Sixteen years after Endor, the singularity that is Ben Solo shreds the galaxy, and sets Chewbacca’s chosen world spiraling into the black.

**


End file.
